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New COST study: Washington ranks 9th highest for business taxes

July 18th, 2013

The Council on State Taxation (COST) recently released its annual report on state and local business taxes and, again, Washington’s business tax structure isn’t stacking up all that well. As reported on the Washington Research Council blog, taxes paid by businesses were 53.9 of percent total state and local taxes in Washington for FY 2012. Washington ranked 9th highest among the states in the share of state and local taxes paid by businesses. The nationwide average business share of state and local taxes was 45.2 percent.

Five states got more than 50 percent of state and local taxes from businesses: Alaska (89.7 percent), North Dakota (73.5 percent), Wyoming (73.2 percent), Texas (61.5 percent) and Louisiana (60.7 percent). Each of these states raises a good deal of revenue from severance taxes on petroleum production.